Chasing Reality
by tinuelena
Summary: After Robert Fischer breaks up his empire, he encounters Ariadne while giving a presentation at Oxford University. Together, they realize they may still be caught in someone else's dream, and enlist Cobb's help to break into reality- if it exists.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Credit for dragging me into Inception goes to Ginny, Mandy, Em, and various other GQMF unicorn princesses. (love you spashal gahells.)

xx

The room was dark. Robert Fischer stood behind a lectern, backlit by an enormous screen. The text of his PowerPoint cast a blue glow over the crowd.

For standing in the Oxford auditorium, giving this presentation to the fourth-year business students, he had received a check for two hundred thousand dollars. He knew his audience was hanging on his every word; almost everyone held a pen in hand, poised to write down his wisdom in hopes of creating their own multimillion-dollar corporation.

But Robert's heart wasn't in it. Despite his turbulent relationship with his father, he'd loved the company his father passed to him, and still regretted breaking up the empire. It felt like betrayal, in a way—the elder Fischer had worked his whole life to build a legacy, and the younger Fischer had destroyed it. The word "disappointed" echoed in his mind, the same vague word which drifted through his subconscious everytime he pondered this subject.

As the students scratched words into their notebooks, Robert found himself surveying the crowd. His eyes landed on a young woman in the front row, writing diligently. She was dressed smartly, in a blazer and slacks, and her hair was pulled into a slick bun. He couldn't shake the feeling that he knew her. She glanced up at the screen and, for a brief moment, their eyes met. Quickly, she returned to taking notes.

While Robert finished his presentation, summarizing his main points and reminding them to maintain professional relationships and never to burn bridges, he kept glancing at the woman, who now refused to give any attention to the stage.

"We appreciate your time, Mr. Fischer." The dean appeared onstage and shook his hand, then addressed the audience. "Students, Mr. Fischer will return in approximately fifteen minutes for a brief Q&A session. Please return to the auditorium by 2:30."

Robert left the stage, thankful for the small break. He exited through one of the back doors, feeling the need to get his legs in motion after standing at a lectern for two hours. As he entered the hallway, he nearly ran into the woman from the front row.

"Excuse me," he said politely.

Visibly flustered, she hurried past him.

"Wait," he said, turning. "You look incredibly familiar. Have we met?"

"No," came the short response.

"I'm sure we have. A brief acquaintance, maybe. I—" He broke off, spotting her necklace for the first time. It was a chess piece—a pawn—on a long silver chain.

She quickly hid it with her notebook.

"No, we do know each other," he realized, closing the distance between them. "I dreamed about you—or, more accurately, we were in a dream together."

Ariadne said nothing.

His training kicked in. The details arranged themselves in his mind. "Extraction. You stole secrets from me?" he ventured, trying to remember.

"I didn't steal anything," she declared.

He strained to remember the dream. "Then someone else did."

"We didn't steal anything from you," Ariadne maintained.

She held his gaze firmly, and his instincts told him she was telling the truth. "Then it was inception." He remembered the snow, the odd juxtaposition of a safe within a safe and his dying father's last words. _Disappointed. _The papers, rough between his fingers. The urge he'd inexplicably felt, to be his own man, chase his own dream— "That's why I did it. You planted the idea to break up the company."

She sighed and stared off into the distance for a moment before answering. "It was my first and my last." He stared back at her, saying nothing, and she felt uncomfortable under his scrutinizing gaze. "I'm sorry, all right? I feel awful. It was all in the news. I followed the story. You sold part of the empire off to Saito. He's the one who hired us to perform inception, and he got what he wanted. And then you built a new business from the ground up."

"Why did you do it?"

"I never thought it was right in the first place…"

"Why?" he pressed.

"I did it so Cobb could get back to his kids. That's all. Kaito promised he'd make a call so Cobb could get back into the United States."

"Cobb—"

"He was part of the team. He was the one who told you that you were _in_ a dream."

Robert cleared his throat. "So he was trying to protect me."

"He wasn't. He tricked you."

They stood for a moment, tense, breathing in the silence. "And you? What are you doing here?" Robert demanded. "Why are you at my lecture? Are you planning to go inside my mind again?"

"I'm not going into your mind, I'm going into business."

He raised an eyebrow.

"I told you. You were my first and last. I prefer to know the difference between reality and the dream world."

"What kind of business are you planning on getting into?"

She paused. "I want to open an architectural firm. Buildings," she added, to clarify.

Robert gazed out the window at the end of the hall. "The weather is perfect."

"And?"

"I don't recall rain in the past few months."

"A dry spell?"

"Or are we really inside where we can never feel rain?"

"You're being paranoid." She palmed her chess piece. "We're not dreaming."

"I can't be sure… unless…" He considered her. "I have to get my own totem."

"You have a totem?" Ariadne asked.

"I _was _trained."

"Why didn't you have it with you in the dream?"

He stared at her. "That doesn't matter. What does matter is that you are coming with me."

"What?"

"Until I know whether I am dreaming or awake, you will come with me. If I'm dreaming, you'll tell me why."

x

Twenty minutes later, an auditorium full of disappointed students checked their watches as the dean searched in vain for Robert Fischer.

An hour later, Ariadne and Robert boarded Robert's private jet and took off for New York.

xx


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Love to all who reviewed/favorited/etc… glad you're enjoying! I appreciate the thoughtful reviews, they help me decide what to do in the next chapter. :)

xx

"It's a seven-hour flight, isn't it?" Ariadne said, accepting a hot towel from the attendant. Robert politely declined. "You may need your rest."

Robert sat back in his chair. "I'd prefer not to sleep."

"To sleep," quoted Ariadne, "perchance to dream."

"Hamlet."

"That's right."

"You don't want to sleep because you don't want to dream." She half-smiled.

"Precisely."

"You know what people are capable of," guessed Ariadne. "You're afraid." When he didn't respond, she kept talking. "I don't sleep well anymore, either," she confessed. "Now that I know my dreams can be invaded—"

"You want to stay on your guard."

"Yes. You, too?"

He didn't answer, and she took the silence as assent.

They didn't speak again until after liftoff, when Ariadne asked him why he chose publishing as his new business.

"The most sage piece of advice I ever received was from my tenth-grade English teacher," he mused. "She told my class to take our hobbies and fashion them into careers. That way, we could spend our lives doing what we love."

"And you like books?"

"That explains the ease with which I identified your Shakespeare quotation, doesn't it?"

Ariadne smiled. "What else do you like to read?"

They relaxed into a conversation about literature, discovering a mutual distaste for Charlotte Brontë and a mutual love for Nathaniel Hawthorne.

"His imagery," Robert replied, after Ariadne asked him what he liked best about Hawthorne. He sipped at a cup of Earl Grey, seeming much more relaxed as the plane coasted over the Atlantic. "It's evident in _The Scarlet Letter, _of course,but his short stories are incredibly descriptive. Take 'Rappaccini's Daughter.' The colorful, intricate details of the garden… the meticulous description of the fatal flower… he manages to paint a vivid picture with concise prose." Suddenly, he was very aware of Ariadne's intent eyes. "It's my favorite of his," he finished simply.

"The Maypole of Merry Mount' is my favorite," Ariadne responded. "I like that he doesn't take sides. He doesn't preach to the reader about the Puritans being good or bad. The reader has the right to decide for himself."

"That is one of the many reasons," Robert said wistfully, "that I enjoy Hawthorne more than any other author."

Ariadne watched him stare into the distance. The conversation trailed off. Briefly, she wished to know what he was thinking about.

"So. Where did you get the inspiration for your career path?" Robert fixed his eyes on Ariadne. "That's a very specific venture you have in mind."

"I studied architecture at college, but never earned my degree. I still feel the need to be around it, but not to be directly involved."

"Because of what happened with me."

She shifted in her seat. "Yes."

"How'd you get in to _that?"_

"It was just dropped in to my lap. There was a professor of mine who was known for helping students find good jobs. Very well-connected. He always told me I was incredibly creative, that in the future I would be designing things no one had ever dreamed of." She paused, noting that Robert hadn't changed expression. "Ironically, he recommended me for a job—designing things that, literally, no one had ever dreamed of."

"Which one was he?"

"He wasn't a part of the team," Ariadne told him. "Cobb used to be a student of his."

Silence reigned for a moment, Robert lost in thought, until Ariadne spoke again. "So you always wanted to do something with literature?"

"Yes."

"But you were about to take over your father's empire."

"It was expected of me."

"In a way, then," Ariadne ventured, "if not for us, you wouldn't have followed your dreams."

"Yes. Yes, I suppose that's true."

xx

Robert awoke as the plane hit the tarmac. His eyes focused on Ariadne, who sat across from him, staring out the window and polishing off a glass of orange juice.

"Good morning," she said with a smile.

Slumped in his chair, he blinked away the blur that clouded his eyes and noted the buildings. "We've landed already?"

"You slept."

"Yes." He sat up and ran fingers through his hair, straightened his tie. "Are we in a dream? A level of the same dream?"

"I'm glad to see you don't completely trust me yet," Ariadne jested, still smiling. She pointed to her glass. "I hope you don't mind. I got thirsty."

"No. No, not at all." He straightened his tie again.

Neither one said another word until Robert's driver pulled up in a black Mercedes S-Class and Robert opened the door for Ariadne.

"How did you find out about extraction?" Ariadne asked, sliding into the car.

Caught off-guard, Robert raised an eyebrow.

"I was thinking about it as you slept. You had projections who were trained to attack us. You have a totem. How did you find out?"

"My father's lawyer told him. You remember the Prevatte case?"

"Of course. The one where the cops were sure they knew who the murderer was, but had no evidence, and then all of a sudden it just turned up?"

"Exactly. The police told the media that an "anonymous tipster" called in to report the whereabouts of Prevatte's body. In reality, what happened is that Prevatte's wife hired an extractor. The extractor sedated the murderer, stole his secret—in this case, the location of the body—and reported it to the police. When the police got there, they found traces of the murderer's DNA. Case closed."

"Your lawyer worked that case?"

"Of course not. His protégé did, and told him the story."

"And what did your father say to that?"

"He didn't believe it. Neither of us did. But my father, who was a gambling man, made a wager with his lawyer that this was fake. So my father hired the same extractor. We were each told to think of a secret. After a short nap, the extractor reported that my father had cheated on my mother twelve years ago, and that I did not want to take over the empire."

The word _disappointed_ echoed through both of their brains.

"Not the best things to hear," said Ariadne awkwardly.

"But both true statements," Robert rationalized, "and thus, my father and I became believers."

"And went through training. Made totems." She played with her own chess piece, which still indicated reality. "Robert…"

"Yes?"

"You still didn't tell me. Why didn't you have your totem with you when we were in your mind?"

"That's not relevant."

"That's not an answer."

"We're here." The Mercedes stopped in front of a tall apartment building, and Robert exited.

Ariadne hurried after him and slipped into the elevator. They rode in silence to the sixth floor.

Robert's house was decorated anachronistically, splashes of modern art mixing with small bronze busts. As Robert led her into the bedroom, she noticed a first edition of _The Scarlet Letter _displayed prominently in its own glass case.

Robert sat on the bed and motioned for Ariadne to join him. She perched next to him as he reached for the stray pair of gold cufflinks on the mahogany nightstand.

"One of those is your totem?"

Without replying, Robert picked up one cufflink. Momentarily, he looked satisfied. Then he picked up the other.

"What is it?" Ariadne wanted to know.

"This doesn't make any sense."

Seconds ago, she had been confident they were in reality. Now, reading Robert's face, she felt a growing knot in her gut. "Are we dreaming?"

"I… I don't know."

"You don't _know? _What does your totem tell you?"

"Both of these are totems," Robert managed to say. "One feels the way it should when I'm in the real world. The other tells me that we're in a dream."

The air in the room grew thick.

"It's not me," Ariadne swore, getting to her feet. "If this is a dream, we're both in it."

"How could someone attack both of us at the same time?" snapped Robert. "It has to be you!"

"Maybe a new method, an advanced extractor… I don't know. But _my_ totem is telling me this world is the real one."

"I can't tell if you're lying," Robert said, holding up his cuff links, "but it's a 50/50 chance and it's too much of a coincidence for you to be in the front row at a presentation of mine."

"Then we need to find out."

"How?"

"We go to Cobb."

"Why should I trust him?"

"Because," Ariadne reasoned, "if you want to find out, we go to him or we kill ourselves and see if we wake up. That's a 50/50 chance I don't want to take."

They exited the apartment. Ariadne gave Robert's driver an address, and they headed out of town.

As the skyline grew smaller, Robert's worries grew. Once again he was in this situation, in this place, vulnerable and alone. He'd been sure that constructing two totems would provide him with double the reassurance. Now, he regretted making the second.

He gazed at the clouds. Were they God's creation, or an architect's?

He glanced at Ariadne. Was she an extractor playing a dangerous game, or a projection of his own?

Robert returned to staring at the sky. Though he could answer neither question, he felt more comfortable questioning the existence of the clouds.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: First of all, wow. I have to hand it to the Inception fandom—I've never gotten so many intelligent, constructive comments before. I LOVE them!

A lot of you expressed concern that the story is moving too fast—I'm in agreement. For me, though, fan fiction is a warm-up writing exercise before I start working on my real writing, so I don't spend a lot of time on constructing a well-balanced story arc, and I don't focus on tiny details (like Ariadne's totem—thanks to whoever caught that mistake!) I respect all the writers who focus solely on fan fiction and spend hours creating great pieces (I've read some amazing things on here!), but fanfic just isn't my first priority. I just throw these up here because if I write them, and people enjoy reading them, why not?

Thanks again for all your constructive feedback!

xx

Cobb's house was just as Ariadne remembered it; breezy, cool, an odd balance between stuffy and inviting. The coloring book and half-eaten grilled cheese on the kitchen table, where they all sat, made it lean toward the latter.

"Two totems," Cobb said, after Ariadne explained the situation. "Why two?"

"I misplaced the first," Robert replied. "So I made a second. Later, I found the original, but decided to keep them both."

Ariadne chimed in. "My totem told me—"

"I don't want to hear what your totem suggested," said Cobb sharply.

"Robert," said Ariadne gently. "Tell us why you didn't have your totem in the dream we were all in together."

He sighed. "I hadn't made one yet. I was preoccupied with my father's death… I wasn't afraid of secrets being stolen from my mind." He stared her down. "At that point, I still had a little faith in humanity."

Ariadne looked away, ashamed.

Cobb turned to Robert. "Did the extractor who trained you ever touch your totem?"

"Of course. He had to check to make sure it was sufficiently dissimilar to an ordinary cufflink."

Cobb's fist hit the table. The glass of apple juice toppled, soaking the coloring book. "Who trained you?"

"A friend of my father's lawyer."

"What was his name?"

Robert thought hard. "Jonah."

Cobb and Ariadne exchanged a long look.

"What's the matter?"

"No one is supposed to touch your totem but you," Ariadne said quietly. "If someone else knows what your totem feels like, they can create a replica of it in a dream."

Robert pulled the cufflinks from his pocket. "That's why they're different. Jonah only examined one of these."

"Which one?" Ariadne demanded.

"I'm not sure. They're identical, in appearance."

Cobb pushed his chair back. "This doesn't make sense. We can't be dreaming. I came back from limbo. I found Saito. We shot ourselves. We ended up back on the plane."

Ariadne turned to Cobb. "Get your totem. Spin it. Let's put an end to this."

Cobb stared at his hands. "No."

"No?"

"This feels like reality, Ariadne. I have my kids. Mal doesn't plague my mind. I don't want to disappoint myself if it's not true."

"You'd rather live in a dream."

"I think most people would agree with me."

Ariadne glanced out the window. It had been years since she first explored the final frontier that was the human dream, years since she'd filled in worlds with her own architecture. Cobb's kids splashed in a kiddie pool; how old were they? The girl wore a sundress.

"Spin it and walk away. We'll get our verdict and won't say a word."

Cobb considered this. "Come with me." He led them into the living room. Ariadne and Robert sat on the couch while Cobb pulled a ring box from behind a photo of Mal. Ariadne's eyes lingered on the photo; in it, Mal was standing in front of a house with a grin. Mal, she thought, was much older than the dream Mal from her memories—but it had been a long time since she'd shared dreams with Cobb.

Cobb opened the little gray box, took out the top, and held it in his palm for a moment. "I am going to spin this and walk away. Do not touch it."

"We won't," promised Robert.

Cobb held it between his fingertips and, with one long look at Ariadne, spun the top and fled the room.

With bated breath, Robert and Ariadne waited for it to fall.

_Sometimes,_ Ariadne thought, _they can spin for a long time. If they're well balanced…_

Clinking noises from the kitchen. Cobb must be cleaning the table.

Robert chewed on a thumbnail.

The top kept spinning. Robert stared at it until he could no longer tell whether it was moving, or miraculously balanced and at rest.

It was Ariadne who spoke first. "It's not going to stop."

"No."

"We're dreaming," she whispered.

"Yes." The voice was gravelly.

Her eyes gravitated toward the door frame. Cobb leaned against it, looking tired. Old. As if speaking the one-word affirmation had aged him another decade. "Cobb," she said gently. "I thought you didn't—"

"You've been right all along," he said quietly. "I have to face my own reality." He strode into the room and scooped the still-spinning top into his hand.

Silence reigned until Ariadne spoke again. She held the chess piece in her hand. "What does this mean for me?"

"What do you mean?" Cobb wanted to know.

"My totem," she responded, turning pale, feeling a vast canyon of uncertainty opening beneath her feet. "My totem tells me that this place is real. That we're _not _in a dream. What does that mean for me?"

Cobb's answer was matter-of-fact. "You could be a projection."

"She's not a projection," spat Robert.

"A projection? That I'm not real at all? How can I not be real?"

Robert 's tone was rife with warning. "Cobb—"

"Wouldn't someone's projection not have a conscience, a mind of her own, the ability to think and feel and—" Ariadne's voice got higher and higher until she trailed off, suppressing tears.

"A projection can do anything," Cobb replied. "You can speak with them. Play with them." His eyes lingered on his daughter, who laughed wildly as she sprayed her brother with the garden hose. They chased each other around the corner. "A projection, in a dream, _is _real."

"But—"

"If we're in a dream, Ariadne, there is a possibility that you don't exist outside of it. If your totem tells you this world is real, that's the truth."

She couldn't move. "I'm real."

Cobb shrugged. "There's one way to find out."

Ariadne swallowed hard. "Give me a gun."

"No." It was Robert. "Shouldn't we think about this?"

Cobb's eyes were on his children. His daughter finally caught her younger brother and grabbed him, pulling them both to the ground. She squealed with laughter. "If this is a dream," he said slowly, "I want to sleep another night."


	4. Chapter 4

Ariadne sat across the table from Robert, her mind wandering, cutting her steak into small pieces. They sat at a private table in one of the city's best restaurants, indulging in the best wine, the intricately cut crystal glasses, the exquisite sound of a string quartet. But Ariadne could not bring herself to enjoy a single moment of the experience.

"Are you going to eat?" Robert finally asked.

"Do projections eat?" she countered.

He sighed, setting his fork and knife down. "You're not a projection," Robert repeated, for what seemed like the hundredth time. "Projections can't discuss Hawthorne in detail."

"If this is _your_ dream, I could," she pointed out, and Robert was forced to admit to himself that this was a possibility.

"Or maybe I'm the projection, Ariadne. Maybe I read Hawthorne because you do. One of my totems tells me the world is real, one of them tells me it is a dream. Which to believe?"

"It doesn't make sense for someone to tamper with a totem to make reality seem like a dream," reasoned Ariadne. "Jonah must have tampered with the one which is telling you this is the real world. He wanted you to believe that your dream was reality."

"Why?"

"Maybe he wants to keep you in a dream state. If you think the world is real, you're certainly not going to kill yourself and, therefore, you won't wake up." She paused. "Who is this Jonah, anyway?"

"A friend of my father's lawyer."

"That doesn't tell me much."

Robert sighed and took a long sip of wine, focusing on the window over Ariadne's shoulder. "He wasn't one to discuss his personal life. I do know he was fluent in both English and French, loved fine wines, and had an interest in designing houses."

"Designing houses," repeated Ariadne.

"Yes."

Her fingers curled around her fork, skin pale against the brushed silver. "As in architecture?"

Robert took a sip of his own wine. "Yes, architecture. I particularly recall him telling me that he designed his own home."

"What if he's a dream architect?"

"It's probable," Robert replied. "He was involved with extraction."

"I forget how much you know," sighed Ariadne. "Speaking of which—when we ran in to each other at Oxford, you _knew _me. You mentioned inception. How did you know?"

"I didn't," he admitted, "not right away. One night, soon after the final pieces of the company had been sold, I went to dinner with a friend called Evan, who's very forthcoming. He demanded to know why I'd destroyed my inheritance, and I gave him the reason—that I felt my father had wanted me to become my own person and be the architect of my own success."

"A good reason."

"Evan, however, knew my father just as well as I did. He said my father had built the company with the intention of making a lasting impression on the world. A legacy for the Fischer family. And that he would be disappointed that I ruined it." His voice quavered on the word "disappointed."

Ariadne remembered what Cobb had said about the seed of an idea growing, about how inception had eventually led Mal to suicide. "And what do you think?"

"I was torn," replied Robert. "At my core, I felt that my father really had wanted me to become my own man. But I also remembered what he said to me when he found out he was dying—'Robert, this company is going to become your responsibility. Keep it alive so my grandchildren have something to be proud of.' I also saw how Saito's company had flourished after I sold half the company to him, and it got me thinking."

"So you suspected Saito."

"I didn't know what to suspect. I just realized that splitting up the company was against everything my father ever wanted for me. And I had promised myself to put my own aspirations aside to hold up the Fischer legacy. Once I set my mind to something, I don't change it so easily. You're right, I _was_ suspicious that someone had tampered with my mind. So I trained for lucid dreaming."

Ariadne leaned forward. "Who taught you? Jonah, again?"

"Jonah wouldn't teach me," replied Robert. "So I taught myself. Started exploring past dreams. One dream in particular."

"Ours," Ariadne said.

He nodded. "The dream was incredibly vivid—I remembered the rain, the kidnapping, the man in the hotel bar. I remembered snow, cold and stinging. I remembered a girl with an odd necklace." He gestured to Ariadne's bishop, on a chain around her neck.

"How did you figure out it was inception?" she wanted to know.

At this, he smiled. "I didn't. You told me."

"What?"

"I'd heard of inception, but Jonah told me it was impossible and not to worry about it. It was extraction I should be on my guard for. I had suspected this dream—about the kidnapping and my father—was forged. But I didn't know why, or by whom. Until I saw you."

"At Oxford."

"Think about our conversation, Ariadne. I knew you had been in my dream; that's all. I was guessing. _You_ admitted to it. You told me Cobb's name. You told me he tried to protect me in my dream. As soon as I saw him in person, I remembered—Mr. Charles at the hotel bar."

Ariadne felt incredibly stupid. The secret would have been safe if she'd denied the whole thing. "For what it's worth," she said slowly, "I really am sorry."

He regarded her with kind eyes. "I know. And for what it's worth, I'm happy that I've built my own company, regardless of what my father wanted. I love what I do now."

"So it turned out for the best?"

"I would say so."

They remained silent for a moment, finishing their dinner. As Robert drained his wine glass, he decided to ask one last question. "There was one thing," he began, "I was curious about."

"What's that?"

"In the dream that you created, we were in a place with crumbling buildings. Why? What was that supposed to represent? I've turned it over in my mind—the city was a common place to find me. The warehouse was on company property. I'd met friends for drinks in that hotel bar. When I went skiing in the Alps, I lost my way and glimpsed a secretive-looking facility that piqued my curiosity. All these places were familiar to me. But the crumbling city—that wasn't familiar at all."

"That wasn't part of the plan," Ariadne told him. "That was limbo."

"Limbo?"

"Unconstructed dream space," she explained, "filled in by the only person who had been there before. Cobb."

"I had been kidnapped again," Robert went on. "By that woman. I saw her in a photo at Cobb's house."

"She was a projection of Cobb's," said Ariadne. "Her name was Mal. Cobb's dead wife."

"If it wasn't part of the plan, why were we there?"

Ariadne avoided his eyes. With her fork, she played with a piece of broccoli. "On the third level—the military base—you were shot and killed by Cobb's projection of Mal."

"Why didn't I wake up?"

"We were too heavily sedated. You went into limbo."

"Every time you say 'limbo,' it sounds like you really mean hell." Robert eyed her. "Tell me about limbo."

"You know that each time you go down a level in a dream, time expands," Ariadne began. "So, ten hours in the real world gives you one week on the first level of a dream, six months on the second level of a dream, and ten years on the third level of a dream. In limbo… you could be stuck there for what seems like eternity. By the time you woke up, you'd be insane."

"I was in limbo? Then how come I'm not insane?"

"Because I went after you," Ariadne told him.

"You—"

It tumbled out in a rush. "Cobb gave up after Mal shot you. He said it was over. You and Saito were both dead at this point, stuck in limbo. I couldn't let that happen. Not after I found out how Mal died. So I told Cobb we had to go after you."

"You voluntarily went into limbo?"

She nodded.

"Did you know how you were going to get out?"

"No."

"Ariadne—"

"I knew you would be there, with Mal. We found you."

"On the balcony," Robert whispered. "You pushed me over the side."

"Then I jumped after you."

"You left Saito."

"Cobb was going to find him. I had to go back with you and make sure—" She met his eyes briefly. "Eames revived you with a defibrillator, and you went into the safe."

Images flashed through Robert's mind—the safe within a safe, the last words of his father—_disappointed that you tried._ The tears. The pinwheel.

Ariadne watched his face, saw the tears forming in the corners of his eyes.

"It wasn't real," he whispered.

"I'm sorry."

He reached across the table and took her hand. "Don't be sorry. It may have been wrong, but I've become my own person. I'm grateful, Ariadne. For that, and for your leap of faith."

The words struck her as odd.

"You went into the unknown to save me from insanity," he said, his voice cracking. "Thank you."

xx

"Checkmate."

Cobb frowned at the board. His king was trapped; any move he could make would be thwarted by his daughter's gleaming white army of knights and their glorious queen. Smiling, he tipped the king over.

She pumped a fist, eyes glowing. "That's the third time in a row!"

"You're brilliant, Philippa."

Cobb's daughter grinned modestly and pointed at her brother. "He's asleep."

"Just as you should be." He scooped the chess pieces into the box.

"Aww, come on! One more game?" she pleaded.

Cobb gazed back at her. She had Mal's eyes, big and soulful, eyes he couldn't say no to. "All right. We'll do a speed round."

"Yes!" Excitedly, she set up her side of the board.

They played in silence for several moments. Pawns flew off the board, as was the norm when Cobb played chess with his daughter. They preferred to fight with their big guns.

Philippa moved into attack position with a rook. "Check."

Cobb slid his own rook in front of his king.

"I can still take your rook," she told him.

"If you take mine, my king will take yours," he reminded her.

She grinned. "Worth it. I'll still have my other one. You won't."

As she made her move, James stirred. "Daddy?"

"What is it, James?"

"I had a bad dream."

Cobb folded him into his arms. "You want to tell me about it?"

He rubbed his eyes and cuddled into Cobb's shoulder. "I dreamed that you left us," he murmured. "For good."

"Don't be silly," Philippa said, in her practical-but-comforting voice. She selected a white knight and set it in place of a black bishop. "Dad would never leave us."

"Promise me," whispered James. "Promise me you won't leave us."

Cobb's eyes watered as he gazed down at the fear on his son's face. "I promise, James."

Philippa grinned. Her father's king was cornered. "Checkmate."

xx

"The stars."

Ariadne and Robert were walking back to the hotel. "What about them?" Robert asked.

"They're awfully bright for the city."

"Not for a dream city."

They stopped in front of the hotel doors, staring up at the sky. "This is my last night," Ariadne realized, watching her breath make fog in the air.

"You're not a projection."

"Even if I'm not," she replied. "And I don't believe that for a second."

Robert moved toward the door; Ariadne didn't budge.

"That question everyone always asks—what would you do with your last day on Earth? I think it applies to us," she mused.

"I'll humor you," Robert said, joining her. "If this is reality, and I kill myself tomorrow, it's also my last day."

They stared at the sky for a moment before Ariadne spoke. "Do you want to spend it alone?"

The implication hung in the air.

"No," said Robert softly. "I don't."

xx

With Philippa and James tucked in, Cobb padded out to the kitchen to make a mug of hot chocolate.

"That girl is brilliant."

Cobb turned to see Miles standing in the doorway. "She gets it from her grandfather."

"Don't go."

He raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Your place is here, Dom. With your children. Mal left them; don't you leave them too."

Cobb managed a half-smile. "You'll be here for them."

"They need their father."

"I need to face reality."

Miles took an angry step forward. "What if this is reality?"

"What if it's not? Why don't you find your totem, Miles?"

He glared at his son-in-law. "You know I can't."

"That was your choice," Cobb said. "And now I'm making mine." He shut the kitchen lights off, leaving Miles in the dark.

"You'll regret it!" he called.

"Good night, Miles."

xx

Robert lay on his back, an arm around Ariadne, who was nuzzled into his shoulder. Neither one had brought a pair of pajamas; they rested against each other, fully clothed, Robert's suit jacket slung over the back of a chair.

"Do you remember how you got here?" whispered Ariadne.

"I remember a steak, perfectly cooked. And a riesling instead of a nice burgundy, at your insistence."

Ariadne grinned.

"I remember unusually vivid stars, being on the verge of our own personal apocalypse, the appeal of a potentially bad decision, and my first experience throwing all thought of consequences out the window. That's how I got here."

It wasn't what she'd meant, and he knew it, but the answer satisfied her.

"What kind of buildings did you want to design?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Libraries," she replied. "Most libraries are so dull. I wanted to create buildings with interesting angles and skylights and reading nooks. Rooms with semi-circles. Libraries that draw people inside and encourage them to read."

"My publishing company could stock your shelves," he suggested.

"We could build our own Hawthorne room."

"Hawthorne. 'More and more I recognize that we dwell in a world of shadows; and, for my part, I hold it hardly worth the trouble to attempt a distinction between shadows in the mind and shadows out of it. If there be any difference, the former are rather the more substantial," quoted Robert.

Ariadne closed her eyes. _"P.'s Correspondence?"_

Robert nodded, smoothing a strand of hair from her face. "Part of me doesn't want to risk it tomorrow."

She felt an aching in the pit of her stomach. "I can't live here, wondering if I'm real or not. We have to find out. No matter what that means."

"I know." He sighed. "My timing has never been perfect."

Silence reigned. Robert was nearly asleep when Ariadne spoke again.

"I wonder," she mused, "if we are real—and we wake up—will this fade?"

His fingers tightened on her arm. "No."

She sat up, switched the light off, and returned to his shoulder. "Good night, Robert."

"Good night."

xx

Cobb lay in bed, unable to sleep. _This is how Mal felt, _he realized. _So convinced that her world wasn't real. Was she right after all? Did she kill herself and wake up somewhere? _

He turned on his side, switched on the lamp, and gazed at the framed photo on his nightstand. Mal held newborn Philippa in her arms; she glowed with pride, smiling down at her daughter. "Are you waiting for me?" he whispered.

A creak. Miles was still in the house.

_How did he get here?_ wondered Cobb. _Why doesn't he want me to go? _

Almost without volition, he swung his legs out of bed and slipped out the door.

xx

The afternoon sun filtered through Cobb's windows. Yesterday, at this time, there had been a coloring book and a plate of macaroni sitting on the table.

Today, there was a gun.

Cobb had been up all night. He was calm, collected. Ready. "What did you decide?" The question was directed at Ariadne.

Her fingers trembled and her voice shook, but she was resolute. "Let's do it."

Cobb turned to Robert, who nodded his assent.

"Let me go first," Ariadne requested. She reached across the kitchen table and picked up the gun; it felt heavy and cold in her hand.

"Robert," she whispered.

He reached out and held her free hand.

With a sharp breath, she put the gun to her forehead. A tear ran down her cheek. It was too soon to say anything to the man who was comforting her; in five seconds, it would be too late.

She pulled the trigger.

Robert, visibly shaken, took the gun from Ariadne's limp hand, put it to his temple, and fired.

Calmly, Cobb pushed back his chair, took the gun, and went down to the basement. He approached the shadowed, bound figure in the corner and pulled the gag from his mouth.

"You don't want to do this," pleaded Miles in a hoarse whisper. "Dom. You and I have to stay alive. For your children. For Philippa and James."

Without a word, Cobb put the gun to Miles' head.

"Dom, please, I'm begging you, think of your children! Think of—"

A shot rang out, and Miles went silent.

A second shot, and Cobb slumped against the wall.


	5. Chapter 5

Light hit Robert's eyes; he was still drowsy with sleep, and trying desperately to focus. He didn't recognize the room. It wasn't his home—he was surrounded by brushed metal and utilitarian design, not the warm maple and leather he preferred— but he recognized the silver-haired man across from him. "Jonah?"

A voice reached his ear. "I'm real," whispered Ariadne, pushing herself onto her elbows. "Robert. I'm real."

He didn't say anything, but his heart swelled with relief.

"Where are we?" she asked.

Before he could venture a guess, Cobb sat up and glared at the silver-haired man. "Miles," he spat, "you son of a bitch."

"Wait." Robert turned to Cobb. "Miles? No, that's Jonah."

Ariadne blinked. "No, that's Dr. Miles Lennox."

"That's right," said Miles. "All of you are right."

"Where's Mal?" demanded Cobb.

Miles stared back at him. "With any luck, you won't see her again."

He launched himself at the old man, grabbing him by the shirt collar and pinning him against the wall. "Where's Mal, god damn it? Where is she?"

"I don't know," Miles said evenly.

"Who does?"

Miles' eyes involuntarily darted to the left, to the other man in the room. "Who are you?" demanded Cobb.

Ariadne answered for him. _"Ben?"_

In response, Ben glared back at her.

Cobb turned to Ariadne. "You know him?"

"He's a grad assistant," Ariadne replied.

Cobb let go of Miles and advanced on Ben. "You tell me where she is right now."

He remained silent.

Miles straightened his tie. "Dom. Let's go upstairs. You and I can talk about this."

"No." He pointed violently at Robert. "That's Robert Fischer." It was a statement, not a question, and loaded with implication. "You put me in a dream with him."

"Dom—"

"I told you I wouldn't do it. So you put me under to _make_ me do it? Is that how it works with you now?"

"What's going on?" demanded Robert.

Cobb turned to Robert, who was visibly shaken. "It was Miles who wanted me to plant the seed in your head that you should break up your father's company. And I refused."

"But Saito—"

"We're in reality now, Fischer! There _is_ no Saito!"

Ariadne stared blankly at Cobb as the puzzle pieces started to assemble in her head. A memory of Dr. Lennox asking her to participate in a research project. Ben's assurance that she would be perfectly safe while asleep. Dr. Lennox had said she would be sharing a dream with him, but he'd never mentioned anyone else.

"And you refused on ethical grounds," Miles said, sarcasm infusing his voice. "You're an extractor. You steal things. You have no right to argue ethics."

"Stealing a secret changes nothing. But inception changes a person," Cobb shot back. "It changes their very core. It changes who they _are_."

"That didn't stop you from using it on my daughter down there." Miles' face was stern.

"I did what I felt I had to do," Cobb replied evenly, "and it was wrong. If that had been reality, I would have lost Mal forever. But it wasn't real. And she's here somewhere." He turned to Ben. "Now tell me where she is."

"Why?" Robert demanded, focusing his attention on Miles. "Why do you want me to break up the company? Why the fake name? Why did you tamper with my totem?"

"Oh," Miles said, "Dom gave that one away, did he?"

Cobb slammed the grad assistant against the wall. "If you don't tell me where she is, I will hunt you down, break into your mind, and build a nightmare from which you will never escape."

Ben trembled and glanced at Miles.

"Don't look at him," Cobb said evenly. "Look at me. Look into my eyes. This is not a threat, it is a promise. Now tell me."

"Benedict, don't you dare." Miles' voice was hard.

"I will find out your deepest fears," Cobb said. "All of them."

"She's downstairs," Ben spit out, cracking under the pressure. "First floor. Room 5."

Cobb let him go. "Ariadne. Robert. Let's go."

"You don't think I'm just going to let you walk out the front door." Miles raised an eyebrow, bemused.

"Try and stop us," said Cobb.

"This isn't over," Miles called after them, as they left the room. "It's not over!" He watched them disappear, then marched over to the phone.

"Hello. This is Miles Lennox. I'm the father of Mal Lennox." A pause. "Yes. I am calling to inform you that three people are on their way with the intent of removing Mal from treatment. They are the sort of people who would use force. I would be cautious." Another pause. "Two men and a woman. The woman is petite, brown hair. One of the men is dressed in a suit and tie; the other is tall, a little bit stocky. Short brown hair." He paused again. "No, thank you." He hung up the phone.

Out in the hallway, Robert surveyed his surroundings. They were in a long hallway lit by bare bulbs. Sheets of poly covered open doorways. The whole floor looked like it was under construction. "Where are we?"

Cobb strode to the elevator. "I don't know."

"It's a hospital," Ariadne recalled.

The door opened with a soft _ding _and they stepped inside. Cobb pressed the button for the first floor. "A hospital?"

"Well—more like a mental health facility."

"What do they do here?"

"Inpatient treatment. People with anorexia who need to be closely monitored. People in danger of self-harm. People who are severely delusional to the point where they can't function in society. There's also a center for sleep study on the third floor."

"And on the fourth," Robert noted, with an amount of sarcasm.

The door opened into a sterile-looking hallway. A sign on the wall pointed them toward the residence wing.

"He committed his own daughter?" Robert whispered.

"Rappaccini, with big dreams, imprisons his Beatrice," mused Ariadne.

They set off down the corridor, which turned into a softly-lit carpeted hallway as they approached the living quarters. A nurse pushed a cart down the hall. She stopped at a room, plucked a key from the top of her cart, unlocked a room, and entered with a lunch tray.

They could hear the friendly voice of the nurse—"Good afternoon, Simone, you look lovely today!"—and Cobb glanced at the room numbers as they approached. The nurse had opened room seven; Simone's next-door neighbor was Mal.

Stealthily, Cobb swiped the key from the cart and opened Mal's room. Robert replaced the key on the cart, and they slipped inside.

A young, dark-haired woman sat at the window, staring out at the garden. She was dressed in a black skirt and red sweater. "It's a shame you won't let me open the window," she said without turning around. "I miss the scent of roses."

"So do I," Dom said softly, and she turned.

"Dom? It's you!" She got to her feet, graceful even in her excitement, and went to him. "I knew you'd come."

He stared back into her round, dark eyes, and found himself unable form the syllable.

"Dom, it's me. Look at me. Touch me."

He stepped forward, dazed, and reached out to brush her cheek. Tears in her eyes, she smiled, pressing her hand to his.

"Mal," he whispered. "How long—how long has it really been?"

"I'm not certain. Maybe a week; perhaps less."

He wrapped her into his arms. "You were right. You were right all along. None of it was real."

"I tried to tell you," she began, and broke into tears. "I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry," he whispered into her hair, and she smelled faintly of rose-water and honeysuckle, that familiar scent. He inhaled deeply. "I'm so sorry, Mal. I shouldn't have doubted."

"We were so tangled up in levels of dreaming," she replied. "We were lost. How could you have known?"

"Cobb," said Ariadne, glancing nervously out the door. "We've got to go." She turned to Robert. "Take off your jacket and tie."

"She's got a good point," agreed Cobb. "Miles will have people looking for us."

Robert shrugged off his jacket, tossed it over the back of a chair, and carefully tucked his immaculate silk tie in his pocket. Ariadne took an elastic from around her wrist and put her hair in a messy bun.

"Take a sweater from the closet," Mal suggested, and Ariadne wrapped a green cardigan around herself as Cobb took off his own leather coat.

Cobb offered Mal a hand. "Let's get out of here."

Ariadne poked her head out the door; the nurse was still in Simone's room. "Let's go," she whispered, and they snuck out the door.

"Here," offered Ariadne, untying the scarf from around her neck and handing it to Mal. "To shield your face."

"Thank you." Mal wrapped the scarf around her hair and knotted it at her neck.

"Look natural," Cobb advised as they made their way out of the carpeted hallway and back into the main wing. "We were just visiting a patient. That's all."

"We're limited to two visitors," Mal said.

Ariadne took Robert's arm. "We'll hang back a few steps. Go ahead. Get her out."

Cobb nodded gratefully, took Mal's hand, and headed off down the hallway.

"How long should we wait?" asked Robert.

"Walk slowly," Ariadne replied. "We'll stop at the gift shop."

"There's a gift shop?"

"Oh, every hospital has a gift shop."

They came into the lobby a few paces behind Cobb and Mal. Robert veered toward the promised gift shop, but Ariadne spotted the security guards. Six of them. _An awful lot for a hospital, _she thought, when she noticed a couple of them eyeing Cobb and Mal. One took a step forward.

Immediately, she let out a wail and threw herself into Robert's arms. Everyone turned to stare at her. "I can't just leave her here!" she exclaimed. "She's my sister and I won't just leave her alone!" _Go,_ she silently willed, _get out of here while they're not looking._

Robert caught on immediately. "It's for the best," he said soothingly, wrapping her into a hug. "And she's not alone. We'll visit her every day if you want."

Ariadne continued to sob for a moment, her face buried in his shirt, so no one could tell she wasn't actually crying.

He held her tightly and glanced toward the door. Mal and Cobb were nowhere to be seen. "Come on," he said, "let's go home."

Ariadne wiped her eyes violently, making them red. As they left, the receptionist gave her a kind smile. The security guards didn't give them a second look.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: I'm sorry this has taken so long! I'm working diligently, and hopefully will be updating more regularly until I finish. x

"Why?" Robert wanted to know. "Why was Miles interested in the company?"

They were seated in the corner of a restaurant, each nursing a cup of coffee, except for Mal, who had ordered tea.

"Your father knew too much," Cobb told him. "Miles pioneered extraction and taught it to a select few. It's a well-kept secret."

"If that's his logic, then I know too much. Our lawyer knows too much. Katharine Prevatte knew too much, hiring an extractor to find her husband's killer."

"Katharine Prevatte knew about extraction because she was close friends with Miles. And I was the extractor in the Prevatte case," Cobb told him, to his shock. "But, you have to remember—Katharine Prevatte doesn't exist. There was no murder. That was a part of the dream."

"Then why does Miles have a vendetta against my father?" demanded Robert.

Cobb sighed. "I'm afraid that would be partially my fault."

"Your fault?"

"The first time Miles met with your father, Maurice had a long list of questions about extraction. How it was done, what happened to a person's brain as a result, what the psychological effects were, etcetera."

Robert nodded. "That sounds like my father. Interested in every minute detail."

"The thing is, Miles didn't have an answer. We don't know what long-term psychological effects are caused by extraction, if any. We don't know if this is physically damaging in any way. We obviously didn't know about limbo until Mal and I fell in to it."

Mal, sitting next to him, squeezed his hand.

"Your dad wasn't very pleased with the answer," Cobb went on. "He went through with the training, but kept telling Miles that there should be a research institute. He wanted studies to be done. Your dad was very concerned about—among other things— how the courts would treat theft of an idea, and if it could be considered assault if any damage to the brain or body was done. He voiced all these concerns openly to Miles, and suggested that they partner up for this endeavor."

"He never told me any of this," Robert said, but he hardly sounded shocked.

"Miles explained this whole story to me before sending me to convince your father that extraction was a harmless process. That shared dreaming felt natural to the mind."

"And?"

"Maurice Fischer was a very persuasive man."

This elicited a small smile from Robert. "To say the least."

"Before meeting your dad, I didn't think twice about the effects of extraction. We had a long chat, during which he voiced a lot of concerns, and I started thinking twice about the whole thing. By the end of the meeting, I asked him to start the research with or without Miles, and offered my assistance."

"Did he get a chance to begin before he died?"

"Your father pledged a billion dollars of the company's money to a team of scientists for a private research facility. But the money hasn't officially transferred hands yet."

"So, if I split up the company, the money would be in other hands, my father's pledge wouldn't be honored, and the facility would never come to fruition."

"Precisely. Now, I'm wondering how he got us all here." Dom turned to Ariadne.

"He had our trust," Ariadne said bitterly. "He said he wanted me to participate in a sleep study. That's how he got me."

"How about you?" He focused on Robert, but Mal spoke instead.

"That was Maurice's one mistake," Mal began. "His weakness; the need to protect his son. Maurice was frightened of the side effects of shared dreaming, but he was even more scared of someone stealing his son's secrets. He wanted to protect Robert. Once my father convinced Maurice that he could teach Robert how to defend himself from extraction—it was all over."

"It was his last wish," Robert said, his voice shaky. "He gave me a business card for Jonah Murray. A date and time were written on the back. He told me to honor the appointment, that it was the most important thing he could do for me."

"And you went." Cobb's voice was level.

Mal answered for him. "He came to the hospital. And we put him to sleep."

"The last thing I remember," Cobb said quietly, staring at Mal, "is dinner with you." He gazed up at Mal, who was on the verge of tears. "I barely even remember you pouring glasses of wine. Mine must have been laced with a sedative."

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice shaking. "I'm so sorry, Dom."

"We grew old together. We had children together. But none of it was real."

Tears streamed down her cheeks. "It was real. It was real to me. I still love you."

"What I loved never existed," came Cobb's biting response, and she became quiet.

"What are we going to do?" said Robert, after a moment of awkward silence.

Cobb sighed. "We do to him what he made me do to Robert. Plant an idea."

"No," Mal said flatly. "I am never entering a shared dream again."

"It's the only way." Cobb's voice was sharp. "We plant the idea that extraction and inception are dangerous and need to be left alone until the research is complete."

"It's not the only way," Mal argued.

"What do you propose, then, Mal? We run from him? He'll find us, and he'll break into our minds again."

"Or," Mal said darkly, "he'll kill us. Unless we kill him first."

Cobb stared her down. "Absolutely not. I am not killing anyone."

"Then I will," she declared.

His fist hit the table. "No. You don't—" He sighed. "I know what it's like to run away from murder charges. I won't let any of us get ourselves into that situation." Pain permeated his voice, and Ariadne remembered his relief at completing Saito's job, his joy at going home to his children—

"That was a dream," Mal reminded him gently.

"You weren't there to know what I was going through," Cobb shot back.

She composed herself, curling her fingers tightly around her teacup. "No, you're right. I wasn't there. I was imprisoned in a mental health facility by my father."

"That was your own fault," Cobb spat. "You were the one who trusted him."

"I had two choices," Mal shot back, her eyes filling with tears. "My father told me that you had gone against him by convincing Maurice to research extraction and volunteering your help. He said that I could either put a sedative in your drink so you could fix this problem in a dream, or he would kill you for your betrayal. What would you have done?"

Cobb was silent.

"I tried to tell you. I told you when we woke up from limbo. You wouldn't listen to me. Everything I told you was the truth, Dom, and you didn't believe a word. And after I woke up in the real world, I was ready to tell the whole world the truth; but Ben stopped me. My father had left a contingency plan in case I had a change of heart. So I was locked away."

The waitress appeared with a fresh pot of coffee; conversation halted as she refilled their cups.

"So," Ariadne began, staring into her cup. "You want to plant an idea that planting ideas is dangerous. Doesn't that seem a bit hypocritical?"

"Then what do you propose?" Cobb sat back in his chair, eyebrow raised.

"It won't work," she said levelly, looking him in the eye. "Miles is the one who taught you about all of this. If anyone is going to have defenses, it's going to be him."

"She has a good point," Robert agreed.

Mal gave her assent with a pointed look at Cobb that still read "murder."

"No one's defenses are impenetrable. We're not killing anyone," Cobb decided. "We'll go in."

Ariadne and Robert exchanged glances. Mal silently stirred her tea, then set her spoon down delicately on a napkin. "Dr. Charles Rhodes was my father's mentor," she told Cobb. "My father would listen to anything that man said."

He considered this. "You knew him well?"

"Well enough."

Cobb turned to Ariadne. "I'll need an architect."

"What do you need me for? Mal is real. You don't need to worry about that problem any more."

Mal's eyes met Cobb's. "What does she mean?"

He hesitated.

"After you committed suicide down there, you began to appear as a projection in Cobb's dreams," Ariadne answered. "A malevolent one. You shot Robert, as a matter of fact, and sent him into limbo."

Her eyes widened; Cobb could not look at her, and she understood why he'd been so vehemently opposed to her killing anyone.

"You're a better architect than I am," Cobb told Ariadne, putting the memories aside for the moment. "If this is going to work, we need the best."

"Fine," Ariadne relented.

Robert looked at Cobb. "Where do I fit in?"

"You don't have to come," Cobb told him.

"I want to." He stopped his eyes from darting in Ariadne's direction. "This situation directly involves me. I want to help bring the issue to a close."

"You need a point man," Ariadne pointed out.

"Arthur was a projection," Cobb murmured, remembering. "All right. You're going to need some training."


End file.
